Teaching without textbooks - 子供英会話大津市堅田 MARGIT'S ACADEMY OF CULTURE & COMMUNICATION

子供英会話大津市堅田 MARGIT'S ACADEMY OF CULTURE & COMMUNICATION

Birthday Campaign

7/15/2019

If you have been thinking to join any of my online teaching courses, probably NOW is the time.

Next month is my birthday, and as it is a new number in front, I will give you my birthday % off!
So, 50% on each of my courses.

50% off from any of my online courses

In detail:

Margit's Master English Teaching:

The heart of my Courses!
6 modules (videos of ~30 minutes each), worksheets, many live talks with almost all the members who have joined so far, and great discussions I won't want to miss.

You are of course also invited to share your questions and ideas, in discussions and lives or videos, how ever you prefer.
498$>>248$

Margit's Advanced English Teaching:
Again 6 modules (30-45 minutes), discussions, worksheets, lives...

How do we encourage conversations and communication?
How could we get students WANTING to read and write and enjoy doing so?
Activities, videos and many ideas on these topics.
498$>>248$

Margit's Phonics Teaching:
60+ modules (~10 minutes each) for each sound of the GE Phonics program, live classes, activities, and again of course you are welcome to ask questions. THIS COURSE IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN JAPANESE

198$>>98$

Margit's school launch and admin course:
5 modules (about 2.5 hours all together) on how I launched my school and am administering it, great worksheets, and again also here, you are welcome to ask your questions.

198$>>98$

If you apply for Margit's Master Teaching and Margit's Advanced Master
you will get the 'School launch Course' or the 'Phonics Course' (Your choice) for free.

If you are already a member of my Advanced course, please choose between:
1-on-1 Call
and
School launch course
and
Phonics course

If you are member of my Master Course, please write a testimonial in the comments HERE and on the FB live thread (of course same content is fine), and please choose between:
1-on-1 Call
and
School launch course
and
Phonics course

All applications for this offer till July 23rd 2019

Gestures in language learning

7/10/2019

Why are gestures so important in language learning? Especially when we learn speaking?
Gestures trigger a different part of the brain, than for example pictures or words do.
When learning a language (no, actually when learning ANYTHING) it is highly recommended to activate as many senses as possible.
Eyes, ears, hands, balance, if possible also smell and taste.

The picture of a snake:
this only could mean many many things.

The word 'snake'
pretty clear if we have heard the word before, know what it means, how to decode and sound it out, and can 'picture' it in our mind. So, lots of work to do, only with a WORD.

The gesture of a snake:
again, only the gesture could mean many things, but together with the above it gets clearer.

Of course there are many more reasons for using gestures:
it is fun, they can even function as brain breaks.
They help students to get out of their chairs and move around.

I have had times without a voice, and I still could teach, because we all knew gestures.

And, here, for you 10 songs in one playlist to teach with gestures.

As always, if you have questions or comments, let me know.

And here is:

Gestures for 'What are you doing?'

Extensive reading and Raz Plus

7/3/2019

How important is reading, I have mentioned my own experience on this in my last live .
So, I think it is absolutely essential! And here is how I do it.

I know I sound as if I was hired by the company, I AM NOT. I am just a user of this program, and there might be other programs that are equally good or even better or cheaper or whatsoever.
Feel free to share any other experiences with reading programs. And of course if your kids go to the bookstore and get their own physical books that is also excellent. But extensive reading needs 1000s of books to choose from, in the right level, and this is something that you won't find in most libraries.

What isRAZ Plus and how do I use it

How do we get students use what they have learned

6/29/2019

We all know this symptom:
Kids see a flashcard and answer promptly with the phrase they have learned with it.
They hear a song and sing the lyrics~even hard ones.

30 minutes later we ask a similar or sometimes even exactly the same question outside the context and blop!

QUESTIONMARK EYES　?

How can we help our students not falling into the Flashcard trap?

If you have any stories, questions or comments on this, please write them down, BELOW!!! Thanks for watching.

Why Flipgrid

6/27/2019

And here is my Facebook Live session on WHY to use Flipgrid. What makes it different to other platforms? How do we introduce it to parents and students?!

If you have further questions after watching this, put them in the comments.

Watch this live about Why to use flipgrid as a learning platform

Balance of work, parenting and household

6/24/2019

I finally figured out a way of how to share some more thoughts with you who are not using facebook .
Today's live was on an almost hot topic.

Can we balance work, parenting, household without burning out?

I made some maybe striking observations of my own.

Do you have any hacks on this topic?

How to Flipgrid

6/16/2019

A week ago I did a Facebook Live on how I started setting up Flipgrid in my EFL classroom.
It sounds like many teachers got inspired and are wanting to try it.

Please let me know how it goes, and what ideas and topics you come up with.

Example Grids

Meanwhile, I finally mixed a tape of several student works, you can check HERE.
I tried to mix a variety of ages, levels, confidences, and topics.
They all did this without my help. I gave them a topic per video, and off they went.
Which of the topics do you like most?
Looking forward to hearing from you.

'hush!' ~Listen! The 'other' movietalk

5/24/2019

I love doing movie talks with my teenage classes.
Actually one of my first blogs on this website was about a class where I used an animation (it is a favorite one so have a look) and all over the years I have been trying to find more fun short clips to use in English class. There is a small list, I will share in another post, if you are interested.

movie Talk without tune

I know, many English teachers use movie clips to practice listening. Definitely one way to do it~
However, for me, that is something students can do on their own, at home.
Instead, I use movie clips to practice SPEAKING, something students won't do at home, because they are on their own~boring to speak if no one is listening, right?!

And, to get the students speaking, I choose movie clips that have NO VOICE.
The procedure usually is simply a 'STOP and GO', with 100s of questions in between of:
Who is there? What is he doing? How is he? What is going to do? Why do you think he is going to ...? What do you think will happen next? etc etc etc
Kids love it and are completely into the scenes.

Now, yesterday I happened (it really 'happened by coincidence') to do it a different way.
AND I want you to try it yourself on your own, before trying it with your students, so read to the end, BEFORE clicking the play button!!!

What I did:
I put the laptop on my desk so the kids could not see the screen.
I pushed 'PLAY' and stopped after 5 seconds, asking
WHERE they think the scene is happening. (I won't tell you any answers here, because I want you to imagine yourself first)
Then I pressed play again, and paused after another 3 sec. asking who they think is there.
Why do they think so, what exactly does this character look like, what color, what size, what emotion is it etc etc etc
Then I went on through the movie, just like this!

Wow! We had a complete story, just from a few sounds.
This was amaaaaaazing.

AFTER

listening, we watched, again with me pausing constantly, again telling the story and predicting, comparing with the story we had 'listened out' just before.

And finally they were happy to watch the entire 3 minutes in a run.

To get their Junior High School energies HAPPY as well, I had written out the story in present tense and handed it to them, with the task to put it into past tense. Their class was after a day of school -and they are just in their midterm test period in school-, so concentration level should have been expected to be low.
However, they were super eager and when I finished class at 10 past 9 pm I noticed we had worked 25 minutes overtime.

Don't hesitate to leave your ideas on what you can 'listen' from this story, in the comments!

April 16th, 2019

4/16/2019

Margit's Teacher training in shiga

3/30/2019

Very excited to announce:
Margit's Master Teacher Training in Shiga 2019

Time: July 20, 21
Location:  Shiga Prefecture, Otsu city, Titti Seminar House
Day 1:  Margit's Academy Show:
Performance of my students , age 4-12.
This year we are using a new space and will have all of my students in one show.
You will experience not only the kids, but also the parents and how I get them involved.

Day 2: Full Day Teacher Training:
You will experience (I'm sure, not for the first time) what 'learning a language' means, and how your students feel in the classroom. I will use German and Bahasa Indonesia to show you techniques and methods that work (and also why others don't). All 100% practical, so you learn 'as a student' and 'as a teacher' at once.
Lots of activities, games, brain breaks you can take as they are and use in your classroom.
Second half I plan to go a bit into more 'advanced' activities and methods including movie talk, storytelling, reading and writing , again all practical.
The number of participants is limited so we will be able to figure out everyones' needs, and work on these.
And of course just being in this great community of same minded teachers! Don't think twice.

Price: 　　　　　
Regular:    29800円
Repeater: 23800円（till May 25th)
Double:      each17800円( Repeaters+someone new )
Bonus 1: All prices include accommodation
Bonus 2: A kitchen with everything needed for dinner, breakfast, lunch
Bonus 3: In case you want to bring your kids, I have a very special deal for you, that is unbeatable, so get in touch.

I am looking forward to seeing you all, please apply via contact form ,
leave a comment or call me.

If you have further questions don't hesitate to contact.

And here are a few testimonials from last year: